Kickin' It in China - Alternate Ending
by Disney Channel Addict
Summary: Jack is pretty well battered up after his fight with his cousin, and when he's taken to the hospital, Kim decides that Kai is NOT going to get away with it. (Rated T for mention of injuries)
1. Chapter 1

**Hey everyone, Disney Channel Addict here. You probably know me on here as Crescent Moon Dancer, but I'm moving all my Kickin' It and Lab Rats stories to this account, so...yeah. That's pretty much it. XD**

* * *

"Okay Jack, I'm sorry. I'll admit it. I planned the attack against you. Just don't let me fall!"

Kai, dangling over the side of the Great Wall of China, gazed up into the eyes of his young cousin, terror clearly stamped on his face. Jack flashed him a quick half smile of reassurance, trying to ignore the strain being put on his arm.

"Don't worry, I got you, man."

He leaned back, heaving with all his might, and pulled his cousin safely back onto the wall, gritting his teeth as he felt his shoulder shift. "Up...and over!" He gently lowered the older boy onto the walkway, smiling with relief. Kai scrambled to his feet and flipped his shaggy blond hair back.

"Ha! That just proves you're weak." His lip curled contemptuously at his cousin. "I would have let you drop." Jack's mouth fell open slightly, and he stared at the other boy in shock. Before he could think of something to say - or better yet, shove Kai back over the Wall - his cousin grabbed his arm and dealt a savage blow to his broken hand.

Jack cried out in pain, dropping to his knees, and Kai lost no time in shoving him over and giving him several good kicks. The younger boy curled up slightly, gasping for breath, and his cousin moved in for another attack - only to have the best Wasabi Warrior grab his foot, give it a good twist, and send him flying into a red bench that, upon impact, promptly decided life wasn't worth living and collapsed into a sad little heap of splinters.

"Okay, I think everyone saw, I was _NOWHERE_ near that bench!" Rudy shouted triumphantly. Kim smacked his arm, none too gently, and the two of them hurried over to where a half-conscious Jack was being examined by the doctor.

"Is he okay? Jack? Are you alright?" Kim asked. The worry in her voice was almost palpable, and Rudy's face betrayed his own anxiety. But if they sought reassurance from their young friend, they were sorely disappointed; Jack's brain was all muzzy, and he was having a difficult time of focusing past all the pain. If he heard his best friend's question, he didn't have the energy to reply.

The doctor looked up at the two black belts, his face grave. "He has a minor concussion, a deeslocated shoulder, a couple of cracked reebs, and hees hand..." He shook his head, sighing. "Hees hand ees badly dameeged. He should go to the hospeetal."

Kim gasped, and her hands flew to her mouth as Rudy began to stutter, tripping over his words in his rush to get them out.

"Hospital- But- Is he- Will- Is he gonna be okay?"

"Eef he does not fall asleep and go eento a coma, he should pull through," the doctor said reassuringly. "Theese young Karatekas, they bounce back queeker than you theenk."

Without further ado, the capable medical man got Jack settled onto the stretcher that his assistants had just brought, and they wheeled him towards the exit, leaving behind two very anxious people.

Kim looked at Rudy, who tried his best to appear confident. "Oh, he'll be fine!" he told her, his voice dripping with false cheer that wouldn't have fooled a deaf wombat. "Jack's tough, he'll bounce back. You heard the doctor. He'll bounce back." Pause. "Jack will, not the doctor. The doctor isn't injured, Jack is. But he'll bounce back!" he added quickly. "He's like a rubber ball - he never runs out of bounce. Again, Jack. Not the doctor. The doctor's probably not bouncy like Jack is, so if he got hurt, he might not bounce back so quickly, but Jack-"

"Rudy!" Kim glared at her sensei. "You're babbling." Rudy sighed, seeming to deflate like a pricked balloon.

"Okay, so I'm worried too," he admitted. "Concussion, dislocated shoulder, cracked ribs - that's nothing! He's probably gotten worse than that skateboarding, and bou-"

"If you use the phrase 'bounced back' one more time..." Kim left the sentence hanging, but Rudy got the idea.

"Anyway, his hand took a real beating, and the doctor said it was badly damaged," he said, lowering his voice. (Kai and his friends were nearby, gloating over the impromptu fight and the results thereof.) "If he ends up permanently maimed..."

"He's not going to take it well," Kim finished for him. She glanced across the walkway, and if she could have shot lightning bolts from her eyes, somebody - and Rudy was pretty sure he knew who - would have been electrocuted on the spot.

"He's going to pay for this," she snarled quietly, her brown eyes snapping with fury. "He is going to _pay_ for hurting Jack!" She lunged forward, but the Karate instructor grabbed her arm, holding her back.

"No! If Kai could defeat Jack, he could take you down with his eyes shut! You can't do it!"

Kim bristled, incredibly offended. "Yes I can!" she shouted defiantly.

"Yes she can!" Elvis hotly agreed. Rudy shot him an irritated look.

"Stay out of this, Presley!" he snapped - then did a double take and looked again. It wasn't Elvis at all; it was just Jerry, closely followed by Eddie and Milton. All three of them looked hot, tired, and bedraggled, and all three of them were wearing some of the strangest get-ups their sensei had ever seen on them. (Which, when you thought about it, was saying something.) "What happened to you three?"

"Long story man," Jerry replied, raising his rock 'n' roll sunglasses to wipe sweat off his nose, "but the short version..."

"We were getting married!" Milton had a crazed look in his eyes, and he sounded like he was on the verge of hysterics. Jerry nodded.

"We were getting married," he confirmed, then glanced around at the scene around them. "Hey, what's going on? Where's Jack? Why are you holding Kim's hand?" His eyes widened and his jaw dropped a bit. "Are y'all getting married too?"

"What? No!" Rudy hastily dropped the girl's wrist, making sure he was between her and Kai. "I was trying to stop her from murdering the guy who hospitalized Jack."

His remaining students stared at him a moment, then all three of them burst into laughter, leaning against each other for support and chortling like there was no tomorrow.

Rudy and Kim looked at each other blankly.

"Hospitalized...Jack..." Eddie wiped his eyes, chuckling. "That's a good one." He glanced between the two black belts, and, perceiving no trace of laughter or amusement in their demeanors, abruptly sobered up. "Wait, you're serious?"

Quickly and concisely, Kim related the events of the afternoon, from when they arrived at the tournament to a few minutes before the rest of the Wasabi students showed up. The three boys were shocked, and by the end of her narrative, they wore identical slack-jawed, goggle-eyed expressions that made them look, in Kim's maliciously gleeful opinion, like a trio of dead fish.

Very mismatched dead fish, to be sure, but dead fish nonetheless.

Jerry was the first to recover - mostly. "What're we gonna do about it?" he asked, his eyes still the size of plums.

" _Technically, legally,_ there's nothing we _can_ do..." Milton began, but Eddie interrupted him.

"Come on, you heard what Kim said! That guy took down Jack the only way he could - playing dirty. Jack's our friend, man! We can't just stand by his hospital bed and say "Oh, tough luck, Jack. Maybe next time you should look behind you. In the meantime, we just let your attacker WALK AWAY IN ONE PIECE!"

"Calm down, Eddie," Rudy commanded, bustling forward."Milton's right; we can't legally - or honorably - do anything to Kai. Jack had to forfeit, fair and square."

"But it _wasn't_ fair!" Eddie protested, distressed. "They took him out illegally, Kai started a fight that went against regulations, why can't we take him out the same way?"

"You should know better than that," his sensei said, going into one of his rare fits of stern maturity. "Karate is about bettering yourself, about loyalty and justice and honor-"

"Yeah, I don't think Kim knows that," Jerry interrupted unconcernedly. Rudy, Milton, and Eddie all turned around, following their friend's gaze. Rudy groaned.

"Oh no..."


	2. Chapter 2

"Did you see his _face?_ " Kai exclaimed, chortling wickedly. "He looked like someone had smacked him with a shovel!"

"Hey, Kai." One of his thuggish friends nudged him and nodded over his shoulder. "Hot chick comin' in at three o' clock." Kai turned around, watching the 'hot chick' in question as she approached the group.

"So." Kim stopped in front of Jack's cousin, hands on hips and sporting a tight smile. "You beat Jack Brewer and won the tournament." Kai grinned, sizing her up.

"That's right, doll," he said. "I sure did."

Kim hit him.

He never even saw it coming. One second he was facing off with a pretty blond girl in pink, the next second he was lying on his back, colored stars dancing in front of his vision. Some of them might even have been singing. He wasn't sure.

Shaking his head to clear it, the 'champion' scrambled to his feet and lunged, snarling in rage. Kim neatly sidestepped, bringing her foot up to meet his chin as he staggered past, while simultaneously introducing her knuckles to his temple.

Drat. The singing stars were back.

Before he had a chance to gather his wits, the only female Wasabi Warrior floored him under a barrage of swift spear-hand chops and connected her foot to his side in the exact same place he had scored on Jack. All the air whooshed out of him, and he simply lay still for a moment and wheezed. Kim spared him one contemptuous glance before turning on her heel and heading back towards her friends.

Unfortunately for her, Kai was still a competent black belt, who clearly wasn't above fighting dirty. She hadn't gone three steps before something slammed into the back of her legs, knocking her to the stone walkway. Her head cracked against the hard surface, and her vision faded out for a moment. Acting on instinct, she rolled onto her back and flung a leg up, foot stiff and hard. She was rewarded with a pained grunt and felt a stab of satisfaction, before rolling to the side as the grey fog in front of her eyes started to clear.

On her feet once again, she faced off with the angry teenager, fists clenched and ready. Kai gave vent to an animalistic snarl and lunged for her. Kim sidestepped again, but this time there was a foot waiting for her, and she found herself on the business end of a well-aimed tornado kick. She grabbed his foot to steady herself and throw him off balance, but he simply used her grip as leverage and planted a high kick under her chin. Her head snapped painfully back, and she was forced to her knees from his weight. Kai and his cronies closed in on the lone girl.

Immediately, Rudy and Jerry sprang into action. Two of Kai's friends got their heads banged together while another one found himself being attacked by the weirdest looking Elvis-wannabe he had ever seen. Within seconds, a small but violent war was being waged on top of the famous Wall.

Eddie and Milton, still standing on the sidelines, looked at each other.

"We're still only yellow belts," Eddie said.

"We wouldn't stand a chance against a bunch of black belts," Milton concurred.

"They'd eat us alive."

"And then pick their teeth with our bones."

"...It was nice knowing you, man."

"Likewise."

The two friends firmly shook hands before launching themselves into the fray, ducking flying appendages and returning blows when they saw an opening. They gradually fought their way over to the rest of their group, and the four guys formed a protective circle around Kim as she recovered from Kai's most recent attack, well directed kicks and punches holding the opposing Karatekas at bay.

Kim recovered herself and got to her feet, and the five of them fanned out, forming a line across the Wall and striking ready stances, glaring their defiance at the gang of black belts opposing them. Observing the expressions on their faces, Kai felt, possibly for the first time in his life, a twinge of uneasiness that perhaps he couldn't, after all, win this fight.

Clearly, a strategic and dignified retreat was in order.

Suddenly, the immobile Warriors erupted into action, and the line moved forward with beautiful synchronization, yelling their war cries with a vim and vigor to rival the Vikings of olden days. That was more than enough for the battered black belts, who'd already had their confidence shaken that day, a sensation to which they were entirely unaccustomed.

"Strategy" and "dignity" abruptly fell far, far below "retreat" on their list of priorities. Accordingly, they retreated, lacking evidence of both strategy and dignity.

The four Wasabi students and their sensei watched their opponent's scrambled withdrawal, their faces shining with what could only be called triumph. There was a concerted, "YES!" and a round of high-fiving before Rudy sobered again.

"Come on guys, we should go see how Jack is doing," he said, and the others nodded vehemently in agreement. "Let's see if we can grab a taxi."

There was a concerted "NO!", and for the second time that day, Rudy and Kim exchanged a blank look, followed by a somewhat awkward silence.

"The hospital's just a few blocks away; we can walk there to cool our muscles," Milton said quickly.

After one look at Eddie's and Jerry's faces, the other two agreed.

* * *

"Thanks guys. I can't believe you'd do that for me."

"Jack, we're your friends." Kim perched on the edge of her friend's hospital bed, patting his uninjured hand gently. "We'd do anything for you."

They had just spent the better part of forty minutes bringing Jack up to date on the latest developments concerning his cousin. It was strange, Kim thought, how Eddie, Jerry, and Rudy could take a five minute fight and stretch it to an epic battle that took over half an hour.

She could tell from the look on Jack's face that he didn't believe half of it. She didn't blame him.

"I wish I'd been there to see it," he remarked, grinning at his friends.

"Huh, if you'd been there, there wouldn't have been anything for you _to_ see," Milton pointed out enviously. "You'd have taken them out faster than we did." He cast a glance at the other Wasabi Warriors, half exasperated, half amused. They didn't even have the decency to look properly ashamed.

"Apparently not," Jack returned dryly. He waggled his splinted hand at them. "I'm the one in this bed; the rest of you are on it. Oh, and Jerry...I kind of lost feeling in my feet about ten minutes ago."

"Oops, sorry." Jerry clambered off his friend's legs, and, being Jerry, promptly slipped on the shiny floor and vanished behind the other side of the bed. "I'm okay!"

Rudy shook his head at his clumsy student and turned back to Jack, gently clapping him on his shoulder. (The one that hadn't been dislocated.) "You get some rest now, Jack, and heal up good. The doc said the surgery on your hand was a success, and you'll be fine in a while. We'll take turns staying here with you, and the rest of us will be at the hotel if you need us, okay? Milton," he dragged one of the guest chairs over to the bedside, "you get to stay here first. Everybody else, out! Jack needs his rest."

They all filed obediently out of the room, and the last thing Kim heard as she pulled the door shut behind her was, "So Milton, what _really_ happened back on the Wall?"

Kim smiled to herself; she was right, he hadn't believed them.

Smart boy, that Jack Brewer.

* * *

 **I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. I took over a year of Karate, and I can't for the life of me remember how to spell that word! }:( You know, the one pronounced 'key-aye', the shout? I had to use 'war cries' instead, which simply isn't right. So if anybody knows how to spell it, let me know, will you? XD**


End file.
